cyrnel

I think you guys touched on a symptom of our biggest problem. Our auto manufacturers have been in bed with government, coddled as a national interest, to the point product excellence is way down the ladder. Why use billions to develop new fuel-efficient SUVs and engines when you can toss a new cab onto a pickup frame and invest a few million lobbying for goofy exemptions? Then push for a rollback of efficiency standards to influential reps who are only protecting our hard working folk. Lobbying and campaign contributions are relatively cheap. It's be bad (quarterly) business to waste money for the future when it can be found elsewhere more cheaply. Meanwhile, the less connected evolve their product and our disadvantages grow more obvious with time.

Seems similar to how USSR manufacturing incentives, and quality, eroded to junk decades ago.

Babbling here, but I bet I've had more coffee than you today. I hope my gist is clear enough.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195